Books you picked up and quit because you hated it.

[Madame Adequate]

Just because someone doesn't like a particular style, author, or piece, does not make them unable to concentrate, a halfwit who can't follow more than one plot thread at once, or in any other way a Philistine, nor does it mean modern society is incapable (except for we geniuses, of course, who can singularly overcome what has dulled the rest of them) of appreciating such things. In fact, it most probably means someone doesn't like a particular style, author, or piece.

Oh and Vonnegut is overrated. For good American lit read Hemingway or, better yet, step away from the typically beaten drums like them and Salinger and Updike and read some real gold like Asimov, Heinlein, or Le Guin. I honestly believe it's in sci-fi where some of America's greatest and most important works have come, more than is true in other countries.